Westwood Shakes Up His Life in Search of a Major Title

Lee Westwood has moved to the United States, changed his diet, exercise regimen and coaching team, and put in countless hours to improve his short game.Credit
Tannen Maury/European Pressphoto Agency

PALM BEACH GARDENS, FLORIDA — Lee Westwood may have moved to the United States, but you can’t take the British out of the boy, and Westwood has treated himself to a Bentley Continental convertible.

It’s a comfortable way for the 39-year-old pro from Worksop, England, to explore his new confines in South Florida. Westwood has set up camp inside the ritzy gates of Old Palm Golf Club, where he has practiced with reckless abandon.

How much is he basking in the sunshine? When he visited his equipment sponsor, Ping, in late January, Westwood told Chance Cozby, the company’s vice president of sports development, that for the previous six weeks he hadn’t dressed in long pants.

“I put on some shorts, hop in the cart and go straight to the golf course,” Westwood said. “Feels weird not having to get wrapped up and push the ice off the green.”

“There are a number of reasons,” he said, “but the main one is I haven’t got that much time left at the top, and I want to give myself the best chance of staying there as long as I can.”

Westwood’s résumé overflows with achievements. He has won 39 times around the world and played on eight European Ryder Cup teams. He has topped the European Tour Order of Merit and in October 2010, he dethroned Tiger Woods as World No.1. Westwood reigned for 22 weeks.

But as he heads to Augusta National, Westwood’s 40th birthday is looming in just a few weeks, and the Masters, where he will resume his pursuit of a major title beginning Thursday, will be his 60th attempt to win one.

Winning a major would cement his place in history.

Westwood has been dubbed “a nearly man” by the British press for his many close calls. The 2012 U.S. Open marked his 14th top-10 finish in a major and seven of them have been top-three. The only other player in golf history to have as many as that without winning was Harry Cooper, from 1925 to 1938. Past failures have bolstered the opinion of some commentators, including the Hall of Famer Johnny Miller, that Westwood lacks what it takes to win a major.

The great golfers all have had the ability to produce their best shot-making in the most important tournaments. Westwood finished second to Phil Mickelson at the 2010 Masters when he hit a 6-iron off the pine straw, out of the trees, through a hole the size of needle and onto the 13th green. Sometimes you simply are outplayed, as Mickelson, who didn’t win a major until he was 33, can attest. “I’ve been in that position, and it sucks,” he said. “I pull for him and I want him to win his first major soon, because he is that kind of talent.”

It’s as if Westwood has scaled Mount Kilimanjaro and most of the Himalayas and only Everest awaits. Westwood’s decision to pack his bags for the United States was one of a flurry of changes designed to help him reach the summit. He has fired caddies and instructors and changed equipment and his physique. For the first time, he has devoted himself to playing the P.G.A. Tour as his primary circuit.

Smiling warmly and offering reflection in March at the Honda Classic in Palm Beach Gardens, Westwood explained his move to Florida. “I played this tournament last year and we were driving down the road, me and” his agent, Chubby Chandler, “and I said, ‘I could live here, for sure,”’ he said.

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“It wasn’t a tough sell,” Westwood said. “Do you want to go and live by the sea and the sun and by a beach? It was a pretty quick take-up, yeah.”

Such a glib assertion frames his relocation as a lifestyle decision while ignoring the fact that there was a time when Westwood preferred playing just about anywhere else in the world. A decade ago, he attempted to limit his trips to the United States to one week a year and said the P.G.A. Tour was “not my cup of tea, really.”

Now, Westwood said, he regrets not taking up membership sooner and following the example of his English Ryder Cup teammates Luke Donald, Ian Poulter and Justin Rose in calling Florida home. (Donald splits his time between Florida and Illinois.)

“It’s fair to say I’ve grown to love playing in America,” Westwood said. “I used to be ambivalent about playing over here, but you change, you learn to know what you want.”

He has changed more than just his surroundings. He swapped fat for muscle, overhauling both his diet and exercise regimen. He said he was in better shape as he approached 40 than he had been at 30.

It will be all for naught unless Westwood can address the one weakness that has held him back from winning a major: his short game. Last year, Westwood ranked 189th in scrambling and 174th in strokes gained/putting on tour. At the 2012 Masters, he took a confidence-shattering aggregate of 128 putts, a total surpassed by only three other players who completed the full 72 holes, and finished two strokes short of the playoff.

Could a new putter help solve Westwood’s putting woes? Before the Shell Houston Open two weeks ago, he switched to a counterbalanced Ping Scottsdale TR Anser B putter with a 38-inch shaft and higher mass to help keep the face square to the target. The move was the result of extensive testing by Westwood, who spent two days at Ping’s headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona, including three hours in its putting lab. High-speed cameras revealed his putting stroke was cutting slightly across the ball from outside to inside.

“Having Lee here in the U.S. was arguably the biggest factor in getting to spend quality time with him during the off-season,” Ping’s Cozby said.

Another change may have been more drastic. Tired of his erratic short game, Westwood split with his coach, Pete Cowen, after the P.G.A. Championship in August. He hired Tony Johnstone, a former European Tour pro and short-game specialist, but that relationship quickly soured. Westwood also parted with his longtime caddie, Billy Foster, who was sidelined with a knee injury, and fill-in Mike Waite, before hiring the veteran Mike Kerr.

Ultimately, Westwood elected not to employ another short-game coach, and undertook a thorough reappraisal of his technique. Because of his willingness to put in the untold hours on the practice green, Westwood said, he has renewed his faith in his short stick and has sharpened his once shaky short game. This year, he ranks 21st in scrambling and has shown modest improvement in strokes gained/putting (122nd, compared with 179th ).

Still, his season started sluggishly. In March, Westwood dropped out of the top 10 in the world ranking for the first time since October 2009, breaking a run of 176 weeks that had been the longest active streak in the game; he is now 13th. But consistent with his upbeat personality, Westwood isn’t overly concerned. He’s ready to silence his critics and win a major.

“My long game’s always been up to it, and now I feel my short game is too,” he said.

If so, he could soon climb his Everest and wear a green jacket at the peak.